


Awkward

by makomaragi



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
Genre: Coming Out, Confusion, Cute, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friendship, LGBTQ Themes, One Shot, Secret Relationship, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 15:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18055397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makomaragi/pseuds/makomaragi
Summary: Bianca tries to figure out why seeing Cheren again made her feel weird, so she confides in the two smartest people that she knows for help. (Originally written in 2012.)





	Awkward

Bianca wasn’t sure what she was feeling anymore. She certainly hadn’t forgotten about her dear friend Cheren; but she had forgotten about the Beautiflies in her stomach that specifically awakened when he was around. Delivering the trainer’s repaired PokeDex wasn’t an odd errand for Professor Juniper to send her on, but she didn’t know that they were meeting up at _his_ gym.

She traumatically tensed up when their eyes met, even from where Bianca stood at the bottom of the stairs he probably noticed. Cheren adjusted his tie, waving casually to her, he didn’t seem to be having the same affects their meeting was having on the blonde. Bianca waved shyly, hiding her face in her coat, feeling her face flushing at this smile. She wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. It felt like there was something caught in her throat. Why did she always fumble over her words when he was around? She never had this problem around anyone else. Bianca was hardly the most articulate young woman, but she could say what she needed to when the time called for it. In recent weeks, her voice was broken whenever she wanted to speak to him, not that she knew what she wanted to say, anyway.

“Did you find the meeting place okay?”

“Huh?” Professor Juniper’s question had interrupted her thoughts, walking with her head down, pretending to fix her hat. “Oh…yeah. Everything’s fine!”

“Thanks, Bianca. You can go home now, if you’d like. I have dinner plans tonight, so we’re closing up a bit early,” Juniper smiled, gathering a few papers off of the desk.

On a usual afternoon, Bianca would have eagerly skipped out of the lab, a weight lifted off her shoulders now that work was over. However, her stomach still felt funny, the same way it did when Cheren smiled at her earlier. She didn’t feel sick, but something was off. The blonde approached the desk, drumming her fingers over the ledge. She couldn’t stop thinking about how she felt in those few short seconds whenever their glances met, her palms sweating at the mere memory of it.

Professor Juniper was probably the smartest person she knew, if anyone would know what it do, it would be her. The question escaped her lips before she could stop herself; “Um…Professor? Can I ask you something?”

Juniper held a quixotic expression, but nodded. “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

“Umm…I’m not sure how to say it….” She looked towards her feet, rubbing the heel of her shoe awkwardly on the tiled floor. “I, um…have…have you ever…liked someone?”

The professor raised an eyebrow. She was fairly certain she knew what Bianca was hinting at, but the way she phrased it left her unsure. “I like plenty of people,” she laughed softly in an attempt to lure her assistant in to elaborating.

“No! I like lots of people, too! I mean…I don’t know!” the blonde shook her head, pulling at her hat on either side with both hands. She could feel the heat on her cheeks, and bit her lip in frustration.

Juniper stifled another laugh with a curled hand over her mouth, plopping down in the office chair at the desk. “If you don’t know, then I’m not sure how I can help you.”

“Cheren!” she blurted out, “He makes me feel weird!”

Spinning in her chair a bit, Juniper’s laughter was impossible to hide now. The sight of her assistant red faced and stomping over her childhood friend’s assumed affections wasn’t something she saw every day. Bianca was a bright young lady, always doing her best and often exceeding expectations with lab work, but when it came to her feelings, the poor girl seemed terribly lost. It wasn’t surprising to her that Cheren was the person she had been referring to, but to save face, she asked, “So you _like_ Cheren?”

“I don’t know!” Bianca threw her hands up, catching her glasses, causing them to fall off one side of her face. She quickly adjusted them, huffing. “But…you know what I mean, then? Um…have…have you ever liked someone like that?”

The professor couldn’t decide if it was impeccable or dreadful timing in that Fennel swung the door open in the moment she was gathering her thoughts to respond to Bianca “Aure- oh! Hi, Bianca!” Fennel exclaimed, skipping over to where the two were, setting the bouquet of spring flowers down on the desk, her blushed smile towards the brunette interrupted at the notion that there was company. She was clad in a light purple sundress that ended far above where her mane of indigo hair did, vastly different than the lab coat Bianca was used to seeing her in.

“Fennel,” Juniper started, not realizing she had in turn answered Bianca’s question in the same notion, “Perhaps you can help my assistant. She…she’s conflicted over her feelings for her _friend_ ,” the professor’s demeanor seemed to change the instant the other scientist appeared. Fennel was looking back at her with an equally conniving smirk, uncharacteristic for either of them, leaving Bianca shifting from where she stood.

“Is that so?” the dream scientist’s expression changed a bit to a softer, more concerned smile. “Who is the lucky person?”

Bianca shook her head again. Why did these two seem to already know what was going on? Bianca couldn’t help but feel offended, she had hardly explained her feelings to her mentor, and already she and the other scientist were drawing their own conclusions. She supposed it still couldn’t hurt to get a second opinion from the two older women.

“I, um…I saw Cheren today…and it…it made me feel kind of funny…I’m not sure how else to explain it,” Bianca looked at the ground again, blushing at the thought.

“Awww!” Fennel cooed, clasping her hands together, smiling brightly. “That’s adorable! Does he know?”

“Know about what?” Bianca questioned. What was there to know about?

“Well, you should tell him how you feel,” Fennel nodded, and Bianca could have sworn she saw her look towards Juniper in the same motion.

“Feel about what? I don’t understand.”

“Oh…” Fennel looked to the professor for some guidance, but received none. “Well…you…you say you like him, and that he makes you feel different, right? So that means that you _like_ like him, and he could be your boyfriend,” Fennel nodded, trying to put it as simply as possible as to not confuse the young girl any further.

“Wh-what?! I’m way too young for that!”

It was then the realization dawned on the professor; she had known that Bianca was far more sheltered than most other teenagers her age, even after going on a Pokemon journey, but she wasn’t prepared have this discussion with her, even if she was fifteen years old. No wonder she was so conflicted in her emotions.

“Wait,” Juniper put her hand up, “It’s a bit soon for that, Fennel. I don’t think, erm…”

“What are you talking about, Aurea?”

“This isn’t our place to tell you about all of this, Bianca. Go home and ask your mom, okay?” Juniper put a hand to her face, rubbing her forehead. In all of her time as a professor, she prided herself on helping the children begin their life changing Pokemon journey, and was always excited to hear of their progress, both as a trainer and otherwise. But this was something she never thought she’d have to deal with, especially with her assistant, who she had always regarded as slightly more mature than many of her trainers, though perhaps now, in a different light.

Bianca continued to stare are her, completely dazed and bewildered. “Huh?”

“Fennel and I have to be getting to dinner soon. Just…use your free afternoon to speak to your parents about this. Okay?”

“Why are adults always keeping things from me?!” Bianca huffed, still oblivious to the conversation that Juniper didn’t want to have with her.

Fennel frowned and leaned in to the professor. They shared a few muffled whispers, Juniper continuously shaking her head, until finally Fennel must have said something to change her thinking. They both looked back up at Bianca, Fennel taking a seat on the desk.

“Erm….” Juniper looked down, haphazardly pretending to shuffle some papers in front of her, until Fennel forcefully cleared her throat. “You…you see…when…when you get to be a certain age…you…. Um…”

“Your hormones are going crazy because you’re a fifteen year old girl who has a crush on a boy. You feel funny around him because you like him more than a friend, and that’s your body’s way of saying you want to kiss him and probably have sex with him,” Fennel shrugged after her bluntness, Juniper and Bianca both sharing the same Deerling-in-highlights stare on her. “What? She’s not _my_ assistant,” Fennel added plainly when the other scientist’s stare did not relent.

“I-I..what?! No!” Bianca’s hands balled up in a fist, her face shrouded in heat, her mouth hanging agape.

“If you’re going to have sex with him, use protection because you’re too young to have a kid,” Fennel continued, her expression unfaltering.

“Wha-what?!” Bianca reeled back, shaking her head. “I-I don’t want to do any of those things!”

“That’s enough, Fennel,” Juniper put a hand on her arm, beat red from embarrassment, shaking her head. “I, um, think what Fennel is trying to say, is that..you have um..romantic feelings for him. It’s normal for a girl your age to feel that way about a boy, so you shouldn’t be upset about it.”

“Oh.” Bianca accepted that way of phrasing it much easier. “ Did you ever feel that way about a boy when you were my age?” Bianca asked neither of them in particular.

“Yeah, Aurea, did you?” Fennel deflected the question with her head in her hands, giggling and blushing.

“No…I was too busy traveling with Papa. I didn’t know anyone long enough for that kind of bond to develop,” unaware of the trap she had set herself up for in saying such.

Fennel grinned, “Until you went to college.”

“Oh! Did you meet a boy there?!” Bianca was instantly entranced the story, if that’s what it was becoming, and appreciative the attention had been turned off of her.

“She met me,” Fennel’s grin softened to a more affectionate smile, unable to help the content sigh.

“No, we didn’t meet any boys. We were too busy studying,” the professor added wryly, giving a shrug, ignoring the way Fennel was looking at her, hoping Bianca wasn’t picking up on anything given their previous conversation. Juniper knew what the dream scientist was trying to get out of her, and she wouldn’t tolerate it for much longer around her assistant.

Bianca was fighting on staring at the two of them between taking in everything that Fennel told her within such a brief time frame. There was a moment when Bianca caught it, the way Fennel’s eyes glistened over when she raised her head and met the other woman’s look, and she felt stupid for not putting it together before. Her mentor shared all the same characteristics when the other woman was present that the girl had around her childhood friend; it was strange to her, seeing the professor in this new light. It explained why she acted the way she did when Fennel was around, and why the two grasped so quickly what was troubling her in the first place.

Fennel must have sensed something, because she stood up quickly, mumbling a bit about going to secure their dinner reservations and disappearing behind the corner.

“You and Fennel like each other like that, don’t you?” the blonde quietly questioned her superior, shifting in place once the dark haired scientist was out of earshot.

Juniper jolted her head in her direction the second the accusation left Bianca’s lips, her face flushing. “Erm-“

“That’s nice if you do. I’m happy for you,” she smiled, her voice still barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“It’s…it’s complicated, Bianca…” Juniper tucked her chin to her neck, sighing, silently wishing Fennel was still here providing the blonde with awkward answers to life’s questions rather than the ones she was unintentionally answering.

Bianca was oddly quietly for a moment, mulling it over given her reaction, and her mentor was assuming the worst until she spoke again. “Is it because she’s a girl? I think that’s okay. As long as you make each other happy.”

Juniper let out a light laugh; perhaps Bianca knew more than she realized about these things. “We do.”

Bianca’s smile widened at Juniper’s confession, “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, promise!”

“Yes, that would be good. Thank you,” She had half expected the girl to take her leave at that point even if she hadn’t budged from where she stood. However, her uneasy line of questions commenced.

“How did you, um, tell her that you liked her though?” Bianca made some sort of uncertain face, raising her eyebrows.

“I didn’t, she told me,” Juniper leaned back in her chair, putting her arms behind her head.

“Oh. I guess I’ll have to ask her how to talk to Cheren, then.”

“I guess so,” Juniper smiled, turning in the direction Fennel had come from when she reappeared and getting up from her seat. “You can discuss it over dinner with us tonight. Come on, we’ve got to get going.”

Bianca gave an ample grin, nodding cheerfully.


End file.
